Pondering human behaviour through examples found in technology, product development, football and politics…while the sun shines

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Drawing the Net home

Someone once said that Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one of them.

First then a mea culpa: I must have multiple excretionary orifices as the opinions just don’t stop coming.

My challenge has always been to figure out ways to retain the thoughts and opinions and narrow them into one conclusive argument.

The act of blogging is helping me achieve this. Especially the art of using Twitter for one type of sharing (somewhat moderated by the use of BirdHouse), Posterous for another and this place for the more “considered” post.

As with life, this still often blurs, though I’m hoping less so over time. But in any case, this was never about anything other than learning which allows me to turn down $100 blog post commissions and go to the pub instead.

With that mea culpa in mind let me just make an observation about the myriad sites out there, many of which have made it into my Reading list over time. They are rather excellently corralled by Feedly which makes Google Reader a million times more readable.

At first I spread my net wide but I’ve noticed recently I’m starting to draw it in and some of the catch is slipping through the holes. If we continue the fishing analogy, those which are slipping through the gaps are mainly ones which aren’t mature enough to keep reading. In that the writing is poor and unfocused.

Often I’m finding many are sites created by “Practicing” “Experts”. The problem with most of these experts posts is that having expertise on a topic doesn’t automatically qualify you to write about it. So in the end their blogposts are the ones which ramble extensively, are poorly written and are only sometimes interesting.

I’m culling them, and it feels good. Knowing I’ll still get to read their best and most interesting posts helps make the decision easier. In this online sharing culture full of multiple curators someone I trust is bound to share the good stuff eventually. And one day, if the content is good enough, regularly enough, their site may come back unto my reading list.

Catherine
I am the modicum of laziness on this one. I’m a reactive person rather than a planner. I write in response to something. Depending on the topic, I may write a draft and rework and publish later. But it doesn’t often happen. I do however like to work my posts so they are at least readable. People with supposed short deadlines rarely seem to take this liberty and Editors just aren’t doing their job effectively anymore. Ergo, unreadable work.
The experts should write their treatise and then get a professional to rewrite, sub or edit before publishing. Their knowledge is worthwhile, it’d be more useful if it was presented well
Gavin